Should I expect racism as a 'black' woman in Poland

Hard to know how your dredging of misleading and irrelevant news stories relates to the experience of a black woman here in Poland.

To moderate this thread a bit, having lived in uk us and canada 30 odd years, when you come here there is a cultural downgrade. Hate to use the word, being Polish myself. Polish folks are not cosmopolitan by any measure. They shy away from anything unhomely. After initial cheerful chitchat you wont detect desire to make you any part of their life. Even I, with near perfect Polish have difficulty making new friends. The only comfort I can offer you is that Poles are not openly sociable or curtious to themselves either. So if you hear them making startlingly rude comments or patronizing instructions in public,rest assured they are part and parcel, unrelated to your race. The way to ease your way into the system is to join some kind of church group in a large city. You are likely to find more affable ambience there.

I've wondered as a Polish American, would I get dirty looks. I'm Polish and Irish.

No u look like any other polish guy

Absolutely not, it's like an African-American asking if he will get dirty looks in California.

Big city Poland TODAY (as opposed to almost twenty-odd years ago when I was first there) aka Poznań, Wrocław, Warszawa and the like will likely indeed be relatively open to such diversity, little argument there:-)

The much smaller urban areas, let alone the countryside in traditionally working-class communities, such as Katowice, might well be a different story though.
University towns and such will doubtless not only look forward to the diversity of an African-American contemporary so that they can practice their English, they'd welcome it!

Yes, Lyzko, Poland has changed massively, especially the big cities. Even Katowice is OK. In my experience, African Americans are both welcome and interesting to people here.

You will be fine and far safer than many supposed western european countries.

I assume the younger ones would be more interested than the adults. Then again, it can be vica versa. Again, this is an assumption. My guess is if you go to a small town, they'd be more curious than anything like it seems to be in the US. Poland is really different in culture though, too. The manners of people and way of life. If Germany is accepting like they are now due to military bases, I wouldn't worry about Poland.

Especially Germany! What the late director Fassbinder did to really open up gay and diverse cultures in Germany can't be underestimated.

Again, the presence for a while of John Godson in the Sejm surely did a lot for diversity, at least for multicultural acceptance in Poland.

black woman don`t need to expect racism in Poland. No. Rather, you would be exotic to Poles. Expect offers for wild sex. Without obligations, of course.

OMG and who says this? a museum curator ;)


Don't say it out loud.


Yeah, and a fake fireplace glued to the wall ;)

I know it is open forum but I suggest than moderator ( instead of picking on out of subjects plots and moving them around) just remove idiotic ,racist post of some idiot from Liverpool.

Trolls are rampant, here as elsewhere in cyberspace, Iwonka!

The original thread concerns whether or not a black woman in Poland should expect racism.
From what I gather after reading through most of these posts, the intelligent ones I mean, I'm convinced there's more out-and-out racism in much of the rural US than in the bulk of Europe, Poland included.

After all, it was in Europe (notably post-War France) that several openly GAY African-Americans lived freely and productively for years, among them Josephine Baker and James Baldwin:-)

yes, most definitely .......god help you if you are alesbian (-:

basically in poland 80% of people are carrot pickers and 20% educated decent people. it is alright some people on these forums going on about how great poland is but there is a reason that is not financial why so many educated leave poland the first chance they get.

do yourself a favour and look elsewhere.....

I'll grant you that what I've observed, Poland is indeed still fairly polarized between the average Neanderthal vs. cultivated hand-kissing aristocrats (compared with perhaps France or even Italy, certainly Northwestern Europe), it's really not that different from most Slavic countries nowadays. Probably the trend has even grown worse since the fall of Communism when at least there was a buffer between straight socialism and capitalism:-)

As soon as the former Jewish intelligentsia made a bee line for the States round about the late '60's with the rise of Moczar and the height of the Gomułka era, Polish society has probably been the worse off for it.

Racism as well was doubtless held in slightly greater abeyance back then!

It's an outdated and incorrect stereotype to regard Neanderthals as crude, unthinking, violent, territorial savages. At least that is the opinion now held within the scientific community:

"The view of Neanderthals as club-wielding brutes is one of the most enduring stereotypes in science, but researchers who trawled the archaeological evidence say the image has no basis whatsoever."

Source: theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/30/neanderthals-not-less-intelligent-humans-scientists

Neanderthal DNA is known to exist in modern Europeans. Since Neanderthals lived in Europe well before the arrival of Homo sapiens those living today with this ancient DNA can take pride in knowing that their heritage has a even longer lineage on the European continent.


That's an interesting point. Coincidentally history also records that during the 1960s the civil rights era started in the States. And just look how even more fractured and violent the States are today compared to back then.


Or it could be due to post-WWII Poland being more homogeneous than prior to the war and therefore there were far less situations for such incidents to occur between different groups. Of the foreign students from other parts of the world who studied in Poland during Soviet times their numbers were quite small and mostly lasted for the duration of schooling and limited to certain parts of Poland. Roma have been in Poland for centuries but their numbers have always been small. Although their nomadic ways mostly ended when they were forced to settle under the communist regime not all did and some left Poland permanently. And Jews who remained still found their way into comparatively middle class professions which provided a secure and comfortable lifestyle for themselves.


In other words you find them to be fellow middle class tourists. Indeed, how bad off can such people be if they can afford to travel, study or secure white collar jobs in other parts of the world?

Threads like this one should be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Truly disadvantaged groups in today's world don't even have access to the internet nor do they even contemplate what their experience in other countries will be like as they bounce around the globe. Such people don't even have money for a plane ticket and hotel stays and very likely don't even hold a passport (and never will).

Threads like this one however do provide valuable insight to the privilege of perpetual victimhood. The OP obviously needed to determine if Poland would be another white guilt-ridden country like America and the UK and hence provide her with a rich and regular source of narcissistic supply.

There's something like that however it's more the educated and cosmopolitan elite at one side and the shaven-headed blokersy and churchgoing villagers (not all of whom are rural) on the other. Nothing new about this; it has been like that for centuries.

Jon "shaven-headed blokersy and churchgoing villagers "

Sad to see that you are just a racist bigot, what is wrong in living in a village or going to church , why connect this to a right wing stereotype.

What is wrong with you being gay,? nothing in my mind, but i live in a village and go to church, why are you going out of your way to put down people you know nothing about, you of all people should know better.

Just carry on , no wonder you get so much stick on this forum, wake up and start treating people who may be different to you with respect and as equals,.

So fashions and lifestyle are a race now? Does everyone have to favour the same shaven-headed sectors of society that you're trying to defend?


Sadly there is a political tendency prevalent of some of the housing estates - as seen by anyone who can read the graffiti. This is relevant to the OP who is a black woman. In her place would you walk around Gocław or Chomiczowka alone at night?


That doesn't make much sense.


Water off a duck's back. Haters love to hate and that is worth fighting against.

sorry.......i have to confirm...church going village(and many from city) polish people do fit the stereotype, 90 % minimum . and that statement is not racist and it does not make me a racist. it is a fact. and it is a state of mind perpetuated by the church itself

You assume too much.Graffiti- work of some stupid kids just to write something controversial.....These are not some organized gangs.

I can ask the same question- Would I like to be at night in some rough area of London or Glasgow....probably no.

Talking about tolerance- just few facts from Wikipedia : As we are so patronized as backward intolerant country ...that it starts getting irritating.

""Homosexuality was never illegal under Polish law, and Poland was one of the first countries to avoid punishing homosexuality in early modern era. This was formally codified in 1932, and Poland introduced an equal age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals,""

"" Labour Home Secretary. When passed, The Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales.[55] The 1967 Act did not extend to Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, where all homosexual behaviour remained illegal. ""

homosexuals in all areas apart from a few large cosmopolitan cities are actively persecuted in poland........fact!

"Does everyone have to favor the same shaven-headed sectors of society that you're trying to defend?"

So you are bigoted when you compare shaven headed sectors to villagers that go to church, I will defend my right to church and village , where did i ever say that I defend a shaven headed Nazi, my father killed plenty, my grandfather killed plenty of Bolsheviks , what are you?, a polish hating soviet.

Ah well you have pulled me into one of your traps, but I don't care, its about time i got my first warning.

It is also fact that you are troll and idiot.

anyone who for one second tries to claim poland is not a homephobic country is the definition of idiot!!
i can honestly say i do not know one pole who is openly gay. am i trolling??

I agree. I still wouldn't want to be a woman from a minority group walking through areas with lots (yes, lots) of graffiti, some of it showing Stard of David hanging from gallows, swastikas, 'white power' (written in English!) etc. You and I know that it's mostly aimed at rival football clubs supporters however the sort of people who might write that are best avoided, not to say shunned, by everyone.

Tourists coming to Poland should not only be careful not to spend too much time in areas with scummy people (this is a good rule everywhere in the world) and if there is anything about them that may attract unwelcome attention, they should think about being part of a group or spending as much time as possible in cultural attractions and upscale hotels & restaurants.


I think very few people would suggest that there is less homophobia in the UK than in Poland.

sorry but from what i remember of uk, if you want to be gay....be gay. it is in the majority acceptable. we don't have all those catholic issues to deal with do we

I think people are more used to it there; that and seeing people whose skin is a different colour. Think of the U.K. Home Counties in the late 70s, early 80s and that's rather like larger cities in Poland.

" 'white power' (written in English!)"

That's probably there because an English bigot like you wrote it .

You can find racists graffiti in any big city in Europe, I have yet to see any in my village.

I see black visitors here from time to time, yes it is a novelty for some to see someone with a different skin color, but never a green flag for racism.

Poland does not suffer the guilt of colonialism and slavery that some other Europeans do , so don't listen to those non Polish here who try and demonize the polish people as racists, Just look at how many racist terms there are in the the English language, then compare that to the Polish language .,